October 25, 2026
Your Premier Source on Third Parties and Independent Candidates Since 2008
This is the new ad by Loki PAC explaining how Johnson could win the ticket by pushing the election to the House of Representative by winning a few key states. Former Libertarian Party Presidential candidate Austin Petersen serves as its honorary Chair. An FEC filing show $2,500.00 expended in this effort with more to follow in this final week to push Johnson prior to election day. More details about this PAC and its key players can be found at the Center for Public Integrity.
Caryn Ann Harlos is a paralegal residing in Castle Rock, Colorado and presently serving as the Region 1 Representative on the Libertarian National Committee and is a candidate for LNC Secretary at the 2018 Libertarian Party Convention. Articles posted should NOT be considered the opinions of the LNC nor always those of Caryn Ann Harlos personally. Caryn Ann's goal is to provide information on items of interest and (sometimes) controversy about the Libertarian Party and minor parties in general not to necessarily endorse the contents.
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Maybe even more than odd. Maybe … peculiar.
Even if Austin hadn’t mentioned it, Peculiar has a population of something like 5,000. It would be kind of odd for him and a Libertarian PAC to both be located there and NOT to be related 🙂
Yep, it’s Austin Petersen. He mentioned it on one of his shows.
Drilled down a bit. Looks like this was an operation out of Peculiar, MO. Perhaps it’s an Austin Petersen affiliated operation….
Not finding much on Loki PAC. The treasurer seems to be Michael J Knebel.
Anyone know anything about him or more about Loki?
@Stewart Flood
“I’d put it at about 1% of the chance that Chicago has of breaking their 107 year losing streak tonight.” – @Stewart Flood
“So a 1% chance then?” – Just Some Random Guy
The Cubs won.
Guess we’ll get a deadlocked Electoral College with T and H less than 270, and McMullin’s votes going to …
… our next president …
President Romney.
If I were a dissatisfied D or R elector, I’d go for someone both sides can respect. Maybe Romney. Maybe Colin Powel.
@Stewart Flood
I’d put it at about 1% of the chance that Chicago has of breaking their 107 year losing streak tonight.
So a 1% chance then?
Stewart, I’m not sure why you think anyone here is a Romney supporter? Romney could come in third in the electoral college. There’s such a thing as faithless electors, and if McMullin wins Utah his electors could go for Romney, especially in a deal with faithless electors from other states. That deal could even be expanded to members of the House if they work it out ahead of time. Then once it gets in the House Romney would be the third option. It may be at that point that some Republican states would go for Romney and some for Trump. Clinton would get the Democratic states, but that would not be nearly enough. Democrats might then opt for Romney as being less bad than Trump or Pence. I say this as someone who would never vote for any of these people, except possibly McMullin for strategic reasons only if I lived in Utah. Clear?
Stewart,
The assumption here is that “the highest numbers” refers to electoral votes.
Trump is going to get quite a few electoral votes.
Clinton is going to get quite a few electoral votes.
If anyone else gets any electoral votes, that person MAY be Romney. If McMullin wins Utah, he might ask his electors to vote for Romney, not for himself. And there could be faithless Republican electors. If there are and if they coordinate, Romney is a lot more likely to get their votes than Johnson is.
If those things happen, the three choices the House has may be Trump, Clinton, and Romney.
If McMullin electors vote Romney, he is third.
And I don’t support Romney… at all.
Have any of you Romney supporters actually read the Constitution? Romney is not an option. They may ONLY vote for one of top vote getters, limited to three:
… then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President …
Romney’s advantage over other options is the 61 million votes he won in 2012. If you’re going to flip the table over, it’s gotta be for someone tens of millions of Americans have already voted for at some point.
I agree, and I think Romney is the only candidate other than Trump or Clinton that has a real chance of being elected. if McMullin wins Utah and forces a deadlock, the McMullin electors could flip to vote for Romney and then the U.S. House could probably be persuaded to go with Romney.
Some Democrats might even switch over to help seal the deal in order to block Trump.
Thank you, Be Rational. This is what I’ve been trying to tell everyone here. I actually think it’s possible that Clinton will resign or be arrested before the election.
That possibility is the only ray of hope I have for the election at this time.
So much bad news coming out about Clinton. This race is still not over.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-yes-donald-trump-has-a-path-to-victory/
BTW, that was 333-205 a week ago and has steadily narrowed.
It wasn’t recorded until 1824.
If a block of Republican electors defect to Romney, say in a deal with the prospective McMullin electors, he’ll be one of the top three. Even the McMullin electors alone could go for Romney instead, in a bid to throw a candidate into the mix that the House may choose to elect. And if the electoral vote is close enough, even one or two electors defecting to someone like Romney could throw it to House with him as one of the options.
Popular vote always existed. But it only became a significant statistic when candidates who lost the popular vote won.
Current RCP no toss ups map http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups.html
273-265
With tossups
226-180-132 toss ups
http://ballot-access.org/2016/11/02/all-state-presidential-polls-at-electoral-vote-com-were-released-as-late-as-october-30/
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
323-215, but lots of tossups that could easily make it go the other way
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo
Now has Clinton down to 298 with plenty of soft states that could go the other way and tip it against her
And the trend is clearly in Trump’s direction:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html
So all of those maps are likely to be more favorable to him 6 days from now if that trend continues.
They can’t pick Romney. They can only pick from the top three in the election.
This is all fun, but ultimately unnecessary. Despite the suspense, Mrs. Clinton will still get more than 300 electoral votes.
All sorts of scenarios play out if that happens. One is that some number of Republicans get together to vote for someone other than Trump in the electoral college and or the House. Another is that that McMullin makes a deal for his six electoral votes to get, say, Romney in as the Republican pick. Also, the House may remain hopelessly deadlocked for president but have no problem with Pence, so he becomes President with no VP elected. Lastly, the entire House may find itself under too much public pressure do do anything other than vote for the popular vote plurality winner; although I think they will probably choose party first.
As for the amendment, it clearly refers to electoral votes; popular votes for president did not exist then.
I had it spaced out with proper html tags, but IPR swallowed them. ARGH!!!
Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that neither Trump or Clinton get the magic number 270 on Tuesday. Regardless of the reason why they fail, it goes to the House.
According to the Constitution, each state gets one vote. This portion reads: … But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; …
A quick spreadsheet listing the states by number of Democrats and Republicans in the House, shows that 14 states are a majority Democrats, 33 are a majority Republicans, and 3 are tied. Discounting that four of the states (3R 1D) have only a one vote majority, it is clear that Clinton can not possibly win enough states to become President!
The issue then becomes this: If Clinton were to gain the votes of 14 states, of the remaining 36 states at least 19 would have to NOT vote for Trump for him to lose.
And remember that for this to happen, at least one more than the number of Democratic representatives in a Republican majority delegation would have to vote for an alternate to Trump. There are only a few states where it is a massive majority, so the probability of this happening is slim.
I’d put it at about 1% of the chance that Chicago has of breaking their 107 year losing streak tonight.
Of course this assumes that at least one other candidate gets an electoral vote. The 12th says
“…from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President…”
This does not specify either electoral votes or popular vote, but you can infer that it is electoral votes since the initial failing vote that enables this was electoral. Johnson would have to make the case that it is popular vote, since it is not likely that he’d be the candidate getting electoral votes.
Details below:
State D R Clinton Not Clinton Too close
Alabama 1 6 Not Clinton
Alaska 0 1 Not Clinton
Arizona 4 5 Too Close
Arkansas 0 4 Not Clinton
California 40 13 Clinton
Colorado 3 4 Too Close
Connecticut 5 0 Clinton
Delaware 1 0 Clinton
Florida 10 17 Not Clinton
Georgia 4 10 Not Clinton
Hawaii 2 0 Clinton
Idaho 0 2 Not Clinton
Illinois 10 8 Clinton
Indiana 2 7 Not Clinton
Iowa 1 3 Not Clinton
Kansas 0 4 Not Clinton
Kentucky 1 5 Not Clinton
Louisiana 1 5 Not Clinton
Maine 1 1 TIED
Maryland 7 1 Clinton
Massachusetts 9 0 Clinton
Michigan 5 9 Not Clinton
Minnesota 5 3 Clinton
Mississippi 1 3 Not Clinton
Missouri 2 6 Not Clinton
Montana 0 1 Not Clinton
Nebraska 1 2 Too Close
Nevada 1 3 Not Clinton
New Hampshire 1 1 TIED
New Jersey 6 6 TIED
New Mexico 2 1 Too Close
New York 18 9 Clinton
North Carolina 3 10 Not Clinton
North Dakota 0 1 Not Clinton
Ohio 4 12 Not Clinton
Oklahoma 0 5 Not Clinton
Oregon 4 1 Clinton
Pennsylvania 5 13 Not Clinton
Rhode Island 2 0 Clinton
South Carolina 1 6 Not Clinton
South Dakota 0 1 Not Clinton
Tennessee 2 7 Not Clinton
Texas 11 25 Not Clinton
Utah 0 4 Not Clinton
Vermont 1 0 Clinton
Virginia 3 8 Not Clinton
Washington 6 4 Clinton
West Virginia 0 3 Not Clinton
Wisconsin 3 5 Not Clinton
Wyoming 0 1 Not Clinton
435 189 246 13 Clinton 30 Non Clinton 7 Tied/too close
“the Republican majority in the US House of Representatives isn’t going to listen to the Republican Speaker of the House” Readers who do not believe the accuracy of Tom’s statement should ask the previous Speaker of the House. He’ll set you straight.
“Paul Ryan has nothing to do with the House vote.”
Yes, because the Republican majority in the US House of Representatives isn’t going to listen to the Republican Speaker of the House.
/derp
Paul Ryan has nothing to do with the House vote. He would do nothing more than preside over it, should actually win re-election and be re-elected speaker by the house.
Those numbers are from some time ago. He’s at 6 percent in Utah, not 24. Same with New Mexico, 13 percent not 26 . . . .
As for advertising in the last week? Show me the ads.
It seems this ship has sailed.
And what’s with “Elec-te-torial.”
This is a really good video.